Thursday, October 27, 2005

She Gone!

Controversial U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination after weeks of criticism over her qualifications for the role...Bush blamed her withdrawal on Senate pressure on the White House to release internal documents concerning Miers.Link to CBC article

Tim: Oh, thank God. Finally. But that isn't the reason, Mr. President. The reason is that she was perhaps the least-qualified person ever to consider wearing the black robes.

Pat: Oh, and don't forget this gem that came out yesterday: Miers said 'self-determination' should guide decisions. You try to claim people should be able to choose, you lose the right, and you don't get confirmed. The Senate had nothing to do with this. She might not have believed it, but it proves that she at the very least is not a strong supporter of conservative ideals, at the very most is against them. The documents are a flimsy excuse; the White House certainly knew that it would either have to give them up or send a complete unknown for confirmation. I'm slightly saddened that a potential moderate voice is gone, but, more than that, relieved that the Senate actually did its job and prevented an unqualified candidate from attaining a high office.

Tim: Hopefully the next nominee will be a good, smart constructionist in the mold of Roberts.

Pat: Nah. Hopefully the next one will be just as empty-headed and poorly-qualified as this one, will suffer the same fate, and Bush will break down and support a moderate.

Tim: Unlikely. They've learned their lesson on this: a nominee by a Republican does not automatically garner Republican support. The next one will have a paper trail, and will be pro-life. There's no way around it.

3 Comments:

I haven't read this anywhere, and I don't follow politics as much as I should... but, doesn't it look like the Mier's offering was intended as a sacrifice to get all the opposition to dump their firey payload on her, then she'd conveniently withdraw and the neo-cons would offer up Alito whom they really wanted to begin with?

The figured with support low for Bush they wouldn't be able to get an Alito nomination to sail through.. so they offer up someone ridiculous, overtake the media with opposition, then when all the opposition is exhausted, offer up their "real" choice?

Seems like their plan worked beautifully... hell, it might have even been Miers' idea.

Tim: Nah, not really. They attacked the President with a vitriol I've never seen from them. They never, *never* break ranks. And why would they need to do this? Democrats were in favor of Miers, making them less likely to support the next one; Republicans will vote yes regardless of how regressive the candidate is. And when we get down to it, why would they need to do that? The opposition here wasn't the same opposition they got from Alito, the opposition was entirely conservative (with a few moron Democrats who fight anything Bush does) with Miers, and only Democrats against Alito.

And support is now lower for Bush than it was when they first suggested Miers. Seriously. It dropped 3-4 points during Miers. If this was planned, it was planned stupidly. It's like Democrats can't imagine Bush failing at anything any more, and so they assume even his botch jobs are conspiracies.

Finally, you ignore the existence of momentum in politics. People don't run out of opposition like they run out of ammunition, opposition and support snowball as they go on. Getting the public to see you as a loser rather than a winner will make it harder to push things through, not easier. The Miers nomination was a screwup. They were looking to avoid a fight, and accidentally got one, and realizing that they had to have a fight, they decided that the Democrats were a better target than their own base.

Pat: It's an interesting proposition, to be sure. I wouldn't dismiss it as easily as Tim, but I'm not sold either. Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks for commenting.

sorry about this.. I wanted to respond to a post you left on my blog, but I'm new to this and don't know if you get notified or not.. so here it i

lone pawn.. you make a reasonable case. I didn't think it was ALL about the oil.. but I believe the Bush administration needed the support of the largest conglomerates who'd stand to gain from war, unstable fuel markets, destruction, and rebuilding.

Many of the potentially interested conglomerates also lay down the law on the general messaging we see via all media, so I think the oil was more of a fringe benefit to get support for the whole invasion package.

What I don't get is why the botched it all up? Most of these guys go all the way back to the Reagan era. And, they got plenty of practice in under Bush senior. Even had a trial run with "Desert Storm".

Do you really think they didn't know what they were doing before they got into it? So, if the answer is yes.. did they possibly botch it on purpose in order to have MANY years of destruction that WE are paying them to do via our taxes.. and then double charging us for the reconstruction of what we already paid them to destroy? Sounds like a pretty sweet racket to me. Maybe the "oil" argument is just a smokescreen for something even MORE sinsister.

Thanks for the comments, I think you're like the second person to comment on any of my blogs. Mostly just the ad spammers. ;-)